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Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit

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Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Mickey7@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4e1356c0-88bb-4620-9340-d063ba584e51.png

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Comments

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  • vala@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    “This is not possible because…”

    This kid is never going to trust teachers again.

    He was right.

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    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The question is not even worded ambiguously. It was just written very poorly.

      Its not a Maths test. Its a comprehension test.

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      • Gumbyyy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Which the teacher failed (assuming this is real)

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    • voodooattack@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This kid is never going to trust that teacher again.

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    • leds@feddit.dk ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Valuable lesson learned, trust yourself instead of authority ( I hope at least that was it and not start of self doubting ever after)

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This kid is never going to trust teachers again.

      If one bad response is enough to turn you off from anyone else teaching you anything ever, then you’re carrying some enormous trauma that has nothing to do with a single math question.

      If one bad response is enough to open your eyes to the fallibility of individuals and lead you to think more deeply about where you get your information and how you evaluate the correctness of a response, then you’re going to go far and develop a much deeper understanding of the world.

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      • SereneSadie@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You are massively not comprehending how a child thinks.

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      • whome@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        But those things stick. I did a geography test 35 years ago and wrote Canada instead of Kanada wich which is the correct spelling in German. In the eyes of my teacher I answered the question wrong and didn’t get the point, but I also got a point deducted because I did a spelling error. I didn’t lose trust in teachers or society in general, but this still nags me. :)

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  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Is there any reason at face value why the teacher’s answer is correct? From my perspective the teacher is an idiot and missing some basic math skills.

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    • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      reasonableness

      This is likely a question about some topic on reasonable questions and answers, rather than a maths question.

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      • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        If I saw two people order different sizes of pizzas, my mind wouldn’t be blown, and nobody would consider the situation unreasonable.

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    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The question literally says “Marty ate more pizza”. It’s a foundational fact that you’re given as a part of the problem. If the answer was the say “Actually, no he didn’t” then you might as well answer “No, he actually at 1/6 of his pizza”.

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    • Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      no way “marty ate more” with the information given.

      that is the ‘Expected’ answer

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      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        So this is sort of a true/false math problem given to us, the viewer, out of context.

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    • remon@ani.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No. Within the parameters of the question it IS possible and the kid gave the correct answer.

      A small fraction of X can have a bigger absolute value then a large fraction of Y when X is suffienctly larger then Y.

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  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I… Um… I’ve been looking at this for a minute and I can’t tell why the answer is unconventional, not what the fuck the teacher is on about.

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    • uniquethrowagay@feddit.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The question asks “How is this possible?”
      What they mean to ask is “is this statement true if both pizzas are the same size?”. To test whether the kids can compare fractures. It’s wrongly worded and the reaction is bad. If any of it is real.

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    • Freshparsnip@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The kid answered correctly, it’s not unconventional at all, the teacher is just stupid

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    • Pnut@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m actually not sure this is real. I’ve had some shitty abusive teachers but even they would be capable of basic logic.

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    • King3d@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It’s fucking dumb. No where did it say the pizzas are equal size. So the kids answer is just as right as her bullshit answer.

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      • howrar@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The kid actually answered the question. The teacher’s expected response is basically “no, your question is wrong and I refuse to answer it.”

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      • lunarul@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        No, the kid’s answer is not “just as right”, it is the correct and expected answer. The teacher’s answer is wrong and proof the teacher doesn’t understand the question. The entire point of the question is understanding that fractions of a whole are relative to that whole and you can’t directly compare fractions from different wholes like that. 5/6 > 4/6 doesn’t mean Luis ate more pizza than Marty, it means Luis ate a larger share of his pizza than Marty ate out of his own.

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      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        But… The teacher is just flat-out wrong. It says right there in the problem that Marty ate more, and then uses that fact as a foundation for the question of “x is true, HOW can x be true”. It’d be different if the question was “someone claims x is true; is it?”

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  • iAvicenna@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    lol this is actually a golden answer and that is why we need better teachers

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  • Gorge@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    In my experience this is how it feels to communicate as an autistic person

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    • FourWaveforms@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Most threads on here remind me of that

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    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Interesting, I’m autistic and what frustrates me here is that the question specifically asks you to posit “How is it possible” and the teacher insists that you’re supposed to just say it’s not.

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      • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m not autistic but agree that the kid gave the correct answer and the teacher is wrong.

        If that had happened to my kid the teacher and I would have had at least one meeting.

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      • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        And it’s not even some crazy stretch to make the premises work. Like if it had said the pizzas are the same size, I’d have to try to come up with something ridiculous to meet the requirements of the question, but people order different size pizzas every day.

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  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Given 4/6 x > 5/6 y therefore x > 5/4 y

    Marty’s Pizza must have been more than a quarter larger than Luis’. The kid is exactly right. And the teacher is not flexible enough to engage outside their expectations for how the question was supposed to be answered.

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    • Freshparsnip@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m pretty sure the kid’s answer was how it was supposed to be answered

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      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Honestly I suspect the question was phrased poorly. It should have simply said “who ate more pizza” not stated who ate more and request to explain how

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    • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Now we know why teacher isn’t teaching math, but they should definitely not be teaching reasonableness either.

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  • CannedYeet@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Marty ate some of someone else’s pizza

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  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Math education in the empire is TERRIBLE. There is no actual math taught. At best it’s applied analogies. The teachers have never taken any advanced math so they don’t even know what they’re not teaching. The goals (eg. calculus) are completely worthless. The entire system is stuck in the 1700s. It’s a complete failure. This image is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg.

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    • MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The empire?

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    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      George Carlin on education.

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      • conditional_soup@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        We’re in the cursed timeline where Carlin didn’t lead the second American revolution.

        Real talk though, it’s because we don’t have an education system, we’ve got a babysitting system. POSIWID.

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    • Nalivai@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You might afford too much malice to something that might be just a generational incompetence total lack of care. Smart kids don’t increase this quarter’s profits, therefore are irrelevant.

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      • young_broccoli@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Thats an awfuly convenient incompetence for the ruling class then.

        Also, I dont know how things are where you live, but here in méxico we keep hearing, year after year, how topics and subjects are removed from school plans. Seems like a very obvious effort to “teach less” every year.

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      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        No. See sibling comment where I linked to George Carlin.

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  • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    This brings back memories of when I realized that I was smarter than most of my teachers.

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  • Binturong@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    it’s fairly clear there are two pizzas, but as to ‘how’ someone eats more than someone else… this is not really a simple math question, there are too many unknown variables. Maybe one has Bulemia, maybe one of them is 6’9" and has a much bigger appetite. Maybe one of the people has a congenital deformity resulting in two mouths… This question is not a math question, it’s an exercise in creativity.

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    • Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah but none of those are relevant to this question?

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      • Binturong@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        My point is the question is terrible, and one might as well answer however they like. It’s a basic logic test dressed up in fractions, the only answer is one pizza is bigger, but that’s apparently wrong, so you HAVE to be creative in describing how to solve the logical problem. Does this help you?

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    • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How did they eat it?

      They put it in their mouth, probably chewed a few times, swallowed, and then repeated the process as needed.

      Q.E.D.

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    • kautau@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Even if it is purely a math question though, it never specifies “Their pizzas are the same size.” The student literally answered how this is possible in a reasonable way that satisfies the mathematical requirements, when the teacher is expecting an impossible answer of “it’s not” after saying in this scenario that Marty did in fact eat more.

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      • squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah, if the question was “Is this possible?” then the teacher’s answer would be reasonable.

        But the “how” in the question implicates that it’s actually factual and the student should come of with an explanation how. Which they did perfectly.

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  • tauren@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The question is stupid, but the kid’s answer is still wrong.

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    • remon@ani.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      How is it wrong?

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      • tauren@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        It’s a basic assumption in these word problems. For instance, when they ask you to compare 2/4 and 2/8, you know that you can transform 2/4 to 4/8 and see that it’s greater than 2/8. It’s a basic school program, there are no tricks here. It’s a pure math exercise.

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  • red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The writing looks like first or second grade. Where do they teach fractions in that grade?

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    • bluewing@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Boys in particular, (though girls are not exempt from poor handwriting), will have “poor” penmanship pretty much all through elementary school and even into Jr High. And fractions are generally introduced at the end of the 3rd grade school year. And based on the question, that’s the likely grade level that test was created for.

      I would bet that most of the students in that class got the answer correct because they were coached to read the question correctly-- to look for the fractions and simply compare them. And anyone else that didn’t, simply chose the wrong answer. Still, you will get a surprise answer like that every once in a while because kids are cool like that. It’s worth a chuckle as you move on.

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    • AugustWest@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That looks like my writing now, and I’m in my 30s.

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      • bluewing@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        As a very old lefty, I wish my handwriting looked that good.

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      • Mesophar@pawb.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Damn, hope you graduate to Third Grade by 40!

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  • henfredemars@infosec.pub ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I know this is bait but who said they had the same-sized pizzas?

    One could be XL the other one a personal pizza.

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    • tauren@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I know this is bait but who said they had the same-sized pizzas?

      That’s a base assumption when you compare fractions in these word problems.

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      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Assumptions make an ass out of you but not me

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  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Some real “steel is heavier than feathers” energy coming off this teacher.

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  • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    When I was in elementary, my teacher said that “Lutetia” was how the Romans called the city of Liege. As an avid reader of Asterix comics, I knew this isn’t true and corrected her and said it was the Roman name of Paris. She insisted that it is Liege. Anyway, the next day, she came back to class and said that she looked it up and that I was indeed correct and Lutetia referred to Paris and gave me a chocolate bar.

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    • thedarkfly@feddit.nl ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Dang, in which country are you talking about Liège in elementary school?

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      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Germany. IIRC the topic was Romans, not Liege specifically.

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    • sigezayaq@startrek.website ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      haha, I also got some points in school for knowing that Lutetia is Paris, which I also found out by reading Asterix

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    • squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      In my country, the written final exams include a Q&A section in the beginning of the test, where the teacher and the headmaster are present, and where they present the tasks and students are allowed to ask questions. After that section, the headmaster leaves and students and teachers aren’t allowed to talk for the rest of the test.

      I noticed a missing specification in one of the tasks. It was a 3D geometry task, and it was missing one angle, thus allowing for infinite correct results. During the Q&A section I asked about that, and my teacher looked sternly past me to the end of the room and said “I am sure the specifications are correct”. If there was an actual error in the specifications, the whole test would have been voided and would have to be repeated at a later date, for all the students attending.

      As soon as the headmaster was out of the room, he came to me and asked where he made the mistake. He then wrote a fitting spec on the whiteboard.

      I liked that guy. He was a good teacher.

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    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I always knew someone else knew about the series!

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      • tomi000@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        What do you mean someone else? Who doesnt?

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      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Asterix was pretty popular in the 90s Central Europe. The movies were in theaters, the older ones got prime time slots on TV, the comics were in every book store’s kids section.

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      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        An animated miniseries came out this year too

        en.wikipedia.org/…/Asterix_and_Obelix%253A_The_Bi…

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  • Enkrod@feddit.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So…

    (4/6)m >= (5/6)l
    m >= (5/4)l
    

    Which means Marty’s pizza is one and a quarter the size of Luis’ pizza. We can comfortably just compare the area, since we can assume a flat disk with equal height for a pizza.

    Assuming Luis’ pizza is a Domino’s Classic size of 25cm that’s an area of:

    (25cm / 2)² * π = (625cm² / 4) * π = 490.874cm²
    

    So Marty’s pizza should be at least 490.874cm² * 1.25 = 613.5925cm² for 4/6 of his to be greater or equal of 5/6 of Luis’, so:

    sqrt(613.5925cm² / π) * 2 = 13,975426964cm * 2 = 27,950853929cm
    

    Since Marty’s pizza is equal or greater, let’s go with 28cm diameter… which happens to match exactly a Domino’s Medium size.

    That’s a very realistic scenario and the teacher is an absolute idiot for not understanding.

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  • lugal@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why would you ask “How is this possible” when you expect the answer to be “it’s not”?

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  • Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Cancel that teachers staff pizza party in lieu of a payrise pass.

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  • ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There’s nothing wrong with the answer.

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  • ExtremeDullard@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The teacher is the one who’s confused here. The kid is entirely correct.

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  • SassyRamen@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Take that to the principal, stupid teachers shouldn’t teach

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  • FelixCress@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It is entirely possible and his answer was correct.

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